Millions of syringes are consumed in healthcare environments every day to inject medications into patients. Some medications are purchased in two or more separate parts and then combined by a medical professional to create a prepared solution which may be loaded into a syringe for injection into a patient. For example, there are certain drugs which are stored in powdered/dry form until immediately before use. Such drugs may be combined with a liquid component and mixed therewith to produce what may be termed a “prepared liquid drug” which may be loaded into a syringe and injected into a patient. By way of nonlimiting example, the drug sold under the tradename Remicade® by Janssen Biotech, Inc., also known as “infliximab”, is one such drug that is combined with sterilized water immediately before injection, carefully mixed, and then loaded into a syringe for injection into a patient to treat diseases such as Crohn's Disease and/or rheumatoid arthritis. Referring to FIG. 1, conventionally, a fair bit of manual manipulation is conducted to prepare a two-part drug for injection. A container of a liquid component, such as sterilized water, may be provisioned along with a separate container of the powdered or dry drug component; additionally a needle and syringe may be provisioned to assist in the preparation steps and subsequent injection (2). The needle and syringe are assembled, and the needle distal tip is inserted across a septum seal of the liquid component container (4). A plunger of the syringe assembly is retracted relative to a syringe body of the syringe assembly to bring liquid from the liquid container into the syringe (6). The needle distal tip is then inserted across a septum seal of the drug component container (8) and liquid component is expelled into the powdered or dry drug component container by inserting the syringe plunger relative to the syringe body (10). With at least some of the liquid component and powdered or dry component combined together in the container that previously housed only the powdered or dry component, these components may be mixed (i.e., using manual manipulation, such as oscillatory motion) together, forming a prepared liquid drug (12). The container may be tipped while the plunger is retracted relative to the syringe body, to allow the prepared liquid drug to become transferred into the syringe (14). The needle/syringe assembly may be retracted from the septum seal of the container housing the prepared liquid drug (16), after which the drug may be administered to a patient by injection using the needle/syringe assembly (18). These steps require quite a bit of manual manipulation of containers and needle/syringe assemblies and can not only take valuable time, but also can expose the operator, such as a healthcare professional, to several positions of needle/sharp exposure—particularly when the syringe/needle assembly is being coupled and decoupled from one container to another, and during mixing if the needle remains positioned stabbed into the container housing the prepared liquid drug.
There is a need for improved injection systems which address the shortcomings of currently-available configurations. In particular, there is a need for systems, devices, and processes for facilitating various levels of control over medication preparation and infusion, and more particularly for systems and methods related to safe preparation and injection configurations in healthcare environments wherein two-part medications are utilized.